Highland Fling

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Neil and I went away for only a couple of days to Glen Coe. We actually stayed in a 2 bed chalet at Inchree centre which was fantastic and good value for money. It was a great time of year to visit - we only ever seen it in the summer but in March there is still snow dusting the top of the mountains making it all look much more dramatic.

There was a fantastic and unusual sunset occured on our first night and we watched it from just outside our chalet which had views across a loch and mountains either side. There was a short walk away from the chalet to an impressive two teired waterfall.

We had decided to try and tackle a walk called the lost valley in glen coe. Its a valley that runs up between two of the famous three sisters and at the start was fine and pleasant then walking on narrow paths with high drops below and eventually some bouldering to get to a ridge that was only wide enough for one foot at a time and a sheer rock drop down around 20 metres on to some more boldours - at this point we turned back and I was getting quite nervous on these edges - it was far more treachorous than we anticipated although it was only given a medium rating for walking.

This region in Scotland is just simply breathtaking, there is loads of wildlife, hundreds of red deer roaming round and loads to do. There are lots of facilities for indoor rock climbing for training and even an indoor ice wall to learn how to use ice axes and crampons. There is a ski centre which we visited. We went up on the gondola to get some nice photos from the vantage point of the ski centre and were also able to have coffee and cake on the moutainside. The ski centre was relatively busy with around 5 runs. You can also use the gondola to get up and do some ice wall climbing for real. Many companies will take you on guided tours and in the summer there is far more activities worth doing, like canyoning etc. There are many good places for mountain biking and its just a really outdoors place.

Some of the drives, most notably Glen Nevis and Glen Etive are also worth going down and we got stopped in our tracks with about 15 Highland cattle - it was a really super trip and we already enquired before we left for accomodation availability for the summer. We will definately return here again and again, just loved it.

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